I had told Robert. He was deeply touched.
“Robert,” I said. “I feel adrift … floating aimlessly with no destination in sight. I am just being carried where the tide takes me. I can see it all clearly. Lisa … her career in ruins … lost as I am now. I know that he loved me, but he would understand Lisa’s plight so absolutely. He was always understanding and thoughtful of other people. She was helpless, I believe on the verge of suicide, and he saw one way of helping her … giving her a home … security … helping her to fight back.”
“It is a terrible tragedy, Noelle. I wish I could help more. I think you are happier here than you can be anywhere else.”
“I can’t stay here indefinitely, Robert.”
“Why not? Regard it as your home.”
“But it is not my home. I am doing nothing with my life.”
“You do a great deal. Marie-Christine is a different girl since you came. We have always been worried about her. Poor child, she has not had much of a life. And we are so fond of you … Angele as well as myself. So is Gerard. Don’t think of leaving us, please.”
“I don’t want to go,” I said. “I can’t think what I should do.”
“Then stay. You should go more to Paris.”
So I stayed.
The weeks were slipping away. It was nearly two months since I had received Lisa’s letter. I had replied briefly, thanking her for letting me know, and wished her and Roderick a happy future. I had heard nothing since. And it was better so.
Lars Petersen had an exhibition, and I was caught up in that. He showed my portrait, which was bought for some national collection. He was delighted. Gerard had the painting of me hanging in his studio.
“I like to see it,” he said. “It inspires me every day.”
Marie-Christine and I, with the ubiquitous Mademoiselle Dupont, were more frequently in Paris than in the country.
While they were at their lessons, I would go to the studio. I had taken to shopping in the markets, which was always an exhilarating experience, and I would take in something tasty for dejeuner. It was becoming a habit. Gerard and I would sit together, often joined by Lars Petersen or some impecunious artist looking for a free meal.
Robert was right when he said that the bohemian life was good for me.
G6rard had noticed the change in me, and one day, when we were alone, he asked me what had happened.
I could not resist telling him. I said: “Roderick is married. I shouldn’t mind, but I do. It is the best thing for him. He has married Lisa Fennell, who was understudy to my mother. She had an accident and that was the end of her theatrical career as a dancer, which was what she did best. I think he was sorry for her. He liked her, too. He was always interested in her career. On occasions I had a twinge of jealousy. And now … she is married to him. She will spend her life with him as I had intended to spend mine.”
“My poor Noelle. Life is cruel. Troubles do not come like single spies but in battalions. Does not your Shakespeare say that?”
“I believe he did, and it is true in my case.”
“But there must be a turnabout. Things will change and then everything will go right. It is a law of nature.”
“I shall never forget Roderick.”
“I know.”
“He will always be there, and always there will be the knowledge of what I have lost.”
“I understand.”
“Because of Marianne …”
“I shall never be able to forget Marianne,” he said.
A shadow fell across the door. Lars Petersen looked in.
“Something smells good,” he said. “Is there a little to spare for a poor hungry man?”
I seemed to have become haunted by Marianne. I knew exactly what she had looked like. I could not get out of my mind those sketches I had come across in Lars Petersen’s cupboard.
I asked questions about her. I talked to Marie-Christine. I tried to talk to Angele. All they would say was: “She was very beautiful.” “The most beautiful woman in the world,” said Marie-Christine. “She had the sort of looks people could not help noticing,” said Angele. “She found the country life dull. She could not have been much more than fifteen when one of the artists who had come down to see Gerard caught a glimpse of her. He wanted to paint her, and that was the beginning of her modelling career. She went to Paris. But she came back fairly frequently to see her sister and the nurse.”
There was very little I could discover which I did not already know. Yet I continued to think of her, because she had bewitched Gerard as well as others.
I suggested to Marie-Christine that we visit her aunt again.
“I think they were rather pleased to see you when you called last time,” I said.
“All right,” said Marie-Christine, “although / don’t think they care much whether I go or not.”
“Well, you are Marianne’s daughter, so let us go.”
We went and were received warmly enough. Polite questions were asked about my impressions.
“You are almost one of us now,” said Candice.
“I have certainly been here quite a long time.”
“And you have no desire to leave us?”
“It is very pleasant here, and I have not made any plans to do so.”
“We won’t let her go,” said Marie-Christine. “Every time she mentions going, we tell her she is not to.”
“I can understand that,” said Candice, smiling.
She wanted to show us the garden, and while we were all walking round together, I had an opportunity of being a little apart with Nounou.
I said: “I wanted to talk to you about … Marianne.”
Her face lit up.
“I’d like to hear more about her,” I went on. “She sounds so interesting, and you know more of her than anyone, I imagine.”
“Interesting! We were never dull with that one around! Candice doesn’t talk of her much … especially before Marie-Christine.”
“You must have lots of pictures of her.”
“I look at them all the time. It brings her back. I’d like to show you, but …”
“It’s a pity. I should love to see them.”
“Why don’t you come one day … alone? In the morning, say. Candice would be out. She goes out in the morning … shopping in Villemere. She takes the trap. She visits friends there, too. In the morning … come alone.”
“That would be very interesting.”
“I’ll show you my pictures of her. Then we can talk in comfort.”
Candice was saying: “I was showing Marie-Christine this holly bush. There are lots of berries forming on it. They say that means a hard winter.”
That was the beginning of my visits to Nounou.
It was easy to call during the mornings when Marie-Christine was at her lessons and Candice was out. There was a conspiratorial air about the visits which suited our moods—mine as well as Nounou’s. They took my mind off my obsessive wondering about what was happening at Leverson Manor. I imagined their riding over to the site, marvelling at the discoveries, drinking coffee with Fiona … and perhaps her new husband … a cosy little quartet. I would torture myself with these imaginings, and it was a mild relief to ride over to Carrefour and chat with Nounou. I asked myself what I should say if Candice returned unexpectedly, or even happened to be there when I called. “Oh, I was passing and I just looked in.” I supposed perhaps she would accept that, but I doubted it.
Nounou revelled in our meetings. There was nothing she liked so much as to talk about her adored Marianne.
She showed me pictures of her. There was Marianne as a child, showing signs of that great beauty, and as a young woman, proving how that early promise was justified.
“She was a sorceress,” said Nounou. “All the men wanted her. She was restless here in this place. It was too quiet for her. Candice was the serious one. She tried to hold her back. She wanted her to marry well and settle down.”